Newfooty was the fore-runner to
Subbuteo Table Soccer, and can lay claim to being the original finger flicking table soccer game. It
was first produced in 1929 by William (Will) L. Keeling and so as I write this in
2004, the game has reached its 75th anniversary. Sounds about time for a tribute
to Newfooty !

Newfooty was also a bitter rival
to Subbuteo in the 1950s, and advertised itself as "the Original
Game". There was certainly the feeling that Peter Adolph had
"borrowed" heavily from Newfooty when producing his own table top
game. As we shall see, the games do look pretty similar in the 1950s, with regard to the size of
the pieces and the methods of play.

However, the truth is that
neither game was produced in isolation, and both build on other
early football games. The size of the goals, the ball, and method of goalkeeping
must owe something to blow football. Likewise, the outfield players seem to have
developed from the shove ha'penny style of game using coins or buttons. Another
game worth mentioning is "Shoot" a football game in the style of
Tiddlywinks. An alternative football game to come from these roots is futbolchapas, a
Spanish/Latin American game played with bottle tops. (see http://www.futbolchapas.com/
for details)

Whilst on the subject of
"borrowing", much of the information on this page was found in, or at
least backed up by, the following published accounts of Newfooty. Bibliography

From Little Acorns... (the Newfooty Story) by Glyn
Williams. Originally published in Table Soccer Review between Feb '85
and Jun '86, this really is the definitive guide to the game. Many thanks
to Simon Goodman who e-mailed a copy of this history to me.

Fifty Years of Flicking
Football by Richard Payne. This cracking history of Subbuteo also has
good details on the history of Newfooty.

Subbuteo Precursor. A
long letter to "Best of British" magazine by Austin Johnson, in
reply to an article on Subbuteo.

I'm aware that I've not gone into
details about the methods of play for Newfooty. However, there will hopefully
be a page on the rules later on.

1929-39 The Pre-War Years.

Richard Payne's book on Subbuteo history -
"Fifty years of Flicking Football", says that Newfooty was invented
by William Keeling in 1927 to amuse his nephews. Glyn Williams' article mentions
1925, and says it was designed for Mr Keeling's son Donald, and nephew Roy. No
matter, the leaflets and boxes from the 1950s proudly state that the game was
"invented in 1929", and this date (the first year of manufacture) is good enough for
me!

Having found that the game was popular with his son's friends, Will Keeling formed "The Newfooty Co." to sell the game commercially. As with many toys of this
vintage, this was a small scale production, sold mail-order only with some very
primitive playing pieces, some of which were made at the Keeling family home.

Pre-War box sets.
The "blue box" shown on the left is from the early 1930s, with the
"red box" set dating from the late 1930s.

The players were made of card and slotted
into a slightly curved lead base. The lead bases were plain in the basic sets,
and painted red and blue for the more deluxe versions. The bases were very flat, and the card figures do seem to be a simple attempt to add
some 3-D to the coin-pushing style of game. The card figure has an action pose,
and this design idea was kept through various figure changes. It is in marked
contrast to the card Subbuteo figure. At this stage, the same illustration is on
both sides of the player. However, as you should be able to see the two teams
in the set shown here each have a different design.

The cheaper sets had wire goals with paper nets, but the
"best finish" ones were very strange indeed, and probably my
favourite Newfooty item. As illustrated, they had thick wooden posts and a perforated
metal net. Very robust !! The ball is a rather odd
two-tone design produced in celluloid, and the colours on these vary. These were
sourced from other manufacturers and may well come from another game entirely. As
with early Subbuteo, including a pitch all but doubled the price, and
so this was only provided in the top-of-the-range set. The marking out was
simply done in chalk. The instruction book mentions marking out the centre
circle and penalty arcs using a "10-inch gramophone record, with the
spot on the field showing through the hole in the centre of the record." A
10-inch record?? That's some centre-circle.

The sets continued to be made
throughout the 1930s, and various coloured teams became available, again
pre-dating one of the key factors in Subbuteo's success, that of making repeat
sales to existing customers. The players also grew slightly, from being an inch
high, to about an inch and a quarter.

1939-45 The War Years.

Now here's an interesting set. In Richard Payne's "Fifty Years
of Flicking Football" book, it states that Subbuteo inventor Peter Adolph felt that Newfooty had "ceased production
at the outbreak of the Second World War and.... was re-launched in 1948 as a
direct counter to Subbuteo". That may have been how it appeared to him, but
even big toy producers like Hornby had to stop production during the War, and
Newfooty enthusiasts report still being able to order teams through the war
years. As the game was "mail-order only" and run from the Keeling
home, it wouldn't have been hard to continue offering this service. However,
this little set (owned by Worthing Five-Star regular Paul Woodhouse), suggests
something a little different. Whilst the box, and contents shown are essentially
a standard pre-war Newfooty set, the box lid has a very plain label printed in
red. In the bottom left-hand corner of the lid is an explanation of this rather
drab version of the game - "war time label". Was the game produced right through
this period?

As mentioned, the box and contents of this set match the pre-war
years of Newfooty, and the contents were pretty basic. The players were smaller
than in the 1950s sets, and all of one design (although it is an attractive
illustration). The bases were still just a small circle of lead, painted to
match the figures. A nice touch here (and you can also see it in the goal picture in
the next section), is that the striped team had thin stripes painted onto the
blue base. Note that the goalkeeper rod hooked around the card figure. The ball,
if it is original, is suitably horrible. The wooden goals were lovely though,
and continued into the 1950s.

1946-51 The Post-War Years.

If like most toy companies,
production of Newfooty had all but ceased during the Second World War as the raw
materials became scarce, then the game came back into full production in 1947, to find that it had a
rival....

Obviously, rationing continued for a few years after the war had
ended, and Newfooty took a little while to get back into production, but as soon as possible, the game was back up and running, with two
box sets. These new sets with their pretty orange and green labels, proudly
state that the game was invented in 1929. This was clearly a reaction to
Subbuteo's arrival, and must be the sets Peter Adolph felt were "a direct
counter" to his game.

Probably the most common box set. "Invented
1929"

Deluxe Set No. 1

Similar to the pre-war Deluxe Set One, with card players,
lead bases, and goal nets.

Post-war "deluxe" goals, in wood or
plastic.
Note the distinctive Newfooty nets, which were apparently cut from a dyed
green net curtain .

A pitch was not supplied with either set, but was available in
the accessory list. Newfooty did use this to their advantage in some respects as
promotional material stated that "Newfooty can be played on any level
table of moderate size covered with a cloth; if it can be marked out to
represent a football field so much the better." The cheap goals were
simply printed card with an enamelled metal from to keep them robust, whilst the
deluxe goals were hand-made out of wood, with real nets, as seen in the war time
set.

In the 1940s, the players were still card, but the design had
improved. Once again, the players were in action pose, but there were now five
different poses per team, which with mirror images for each player made ten
different outfield players. However, the teams do not always come out like that
(especially the later versions from the 1950s). The illustrations also
finally had a back and a front. Celluloid figures were introduced in 1949-50
(the same year as Subbuteo). These used the same player images, but were printed onto a
transparent celluloid, which really allowed the figure to stand out. If this had
a down side, it is just that the detail from one side could often be seen through
the image on the other side. This became more of a problem once the players were
numbered after the 1953 update.

The post-war bases were an attempt to improve on the older
versions, as they now had a coloured balancing disc that sat on top of the lead base. The
new celluloid figure had a smaller tab on the bottom that fitted through the plastic
and into the lead, but the two parts of the base were really held together by
two plastic pins on the underside of the balancing disc. The weight was simply
the older base, and this was thin and flexible enough to squeeze the pins firmly in the
groove. Well, that's the theory. In practice the bases have a tendency to fall
apart in play.

At first only a plastic balancing disc was produced, but later
listings had a "rubber" disc for the card figures, and a
"plastic" disc for the new celluloid figures. These discs had to be
different to match the different weights of the celluloid and card players. This
made for a confusing list of components, which became even more confusing with
another new figure and base in 1953 (see below for details).

1951-52 Rising to the competition.

In his "Newfooty Story", Glyn Williams explains that
in the years 1947-51 Will Keeling was working at the United Photographic
Laboratory in Liverpool, with Newfooty still being a part-time venture. In the
same way that Peter Adolph produced Subbuteo to cover the slack winter period in
his Natural History business, so Will Keeling used the decrease in demand
for photography processing during winter to his advantage. The company allowed
him to use the staff and facilities of the company for "Newfooty"
production with Newfooty Co picking up the wage bill. This enabled the company
to grow, and in 1951 Mr Keeling was able to obtain his own premises and go full
time. The new factory was the quaintly named "Old Post Office Building,
Rice Lane, Liverpool 9". The premises also had the advantage of also having a shop
front, where the game could be promoted and sold.

The new full time Newfooty produced a range of three box sets,
although all were housed in the same box.

The 1951-52 season paperwork used the Old Post Office address,
and promotional materials made much of the "original" nature of the game. "Why
buy a Substitute?" asks the box set price list of that year. Another leaflet
mailed out to prospective customers (the one I own is post-marked 26 Nov 1951 Liverpool)
was even more to the point - "As imitation is the highest form of flattery,
we feel immensely flattered that Newfooty has been imitated, but would point out
that only Newfooty has the complete rules as compiled by the inventor over a
period of years and patent self-balancing men of recent design". Meow. The
leaflet is also quick to point out that the Newfooty players Assn was formed in
1934, and that "silver cups" were loaned to the four largest leagues.

As the above suggests, by 1951 Will Keeling had a patent for his
bases (No 638860), but Peter Adolph already had his patents by this time, so it
was of limited use (the patent was also added to the "Invented 1929" football on
the box lid at this time). Sadly, this patent simply referred to the post-war
plastic/lead combo base. The literature puts a positive spin on these bases

Special Coloured Balancing discs in bases of the men
regulate their balance making 100% balance possible.

The bases are just heavy enough to make the men return
smartly to the upright position during play.

As the bases are NOT hemispherical, rolling is reduced to
a minimum, giving a high degree of accuracy. This is essential for skilful
play.

Despite the gloss, these bases were not up to Subbuteo standard. Subbuteo bases were described by Peter Adolph as hemispherical, but of course
they were not. The flat bottom was all important. What was better about Subbuteo
bases was the curve of the edge, the uniform size, and the lighter weight
enabling longer flicks to be attempted with more accuracy. The flat lead bases
were showing their age. Newfooty needed
a further update to compete.

1953 Newfooty imitates Subbuteo?

Full time production lead to the "1953 type" players
and bases. These new one-piece bases looked much more like the base of the "flat" Subbuteo figure of the time, but they were smaller in diametre, and the lead
component of the base was visible from underneath. Despite the small size, the base
was far heavier than the
Subbuteo equivalent. Add to this the steep sides and metal bottom, and it was
difficult to flick the figure any distance. On the plus side, it was impossible
for the players to fall over if assembled correctly, and some pretty impressive
spinning could be achieved. An odd feature that occurred with these bases were swirls of a different colour within the base. I've
seen a white base with red swirl, and the player above has a black base with
white swirl. The players themselves were the same transparent celluloid as the
previous model, but they had been re-drawn, and re-shaped to the illustration of the player.
Card figures were also still available.

This version of Newfooty was the first one I acquired (about
four years ago), and my
immediate reaction was of just how much Subbuteo had taken from Newfooty. However,
having seen the bases on the 1951-52 set, you have to wonder whether it was
Newfooty borrowing ideas by this time. The earlier lead bases and balancing
discs did not allow the goalkeeper rods to plug into the base, and these actually
clipped around the figure. This was the first Newfooty set where the goalkeeper
rod was stuck into the back of the goalkeeper base like Subbuteo.

Something Newfooty did do first were plastic
goals, which also arrived at this time to replace the hand-made versions. These
were "perfectly formed from extruded rod" according to the price list of the
time. They had a metal back bar for strength, but still look extremely
flimsy. You can see where the plastic rods have been cut to size, and the net is
simply glued on.

The range of box sets expanded to four costing 10/11, 14/11,
19/11 and 45/4 respectively. Obviously, the most expensive set had the addition
of a pitch.

To help fight the competition from Mr Adolph's upstart game,
Will Keeling found support from two prominent players of the day, Stanley
Matthews and Nat Lofthouse. Pictures and support from these two legends adorn several
boxes and rule books.

The history of Newfooty continues on the Page
Two of this guide. Or use the links below to look at other tabletop football games.